This photograph was distributed by ABC in 1985 with a valid copyright notice. However, they distributed it again in February 1989 with the year 1989 in the copyright notice
2205.1(D): ..."if the date in the notice is two or more years later than the year in which the work was first published, the U.S. Copyright Office considers the work to be published without any notice."
It was also published in newspapers with no copyright notice at all, neither for the photo or the newspaper overall.
Licensing
This file is in the public domain because it is a mere mechanical scan or photocopy of a public domain original, or – from the available evidence – is so similar to such a scan or photocopy that no copyright protection can be expected to arise. The original itself is in the public domain for the following reason:
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1978 and February 1989, inclusive, with a defective copyright notice (copyright notice information), and because its copyright was not subsequently registered with the U.S. Copyright Office within 5 years. The copyright notice in this work contains at least one of the following defects:
Notice is dated more than one year later than the actual date of first publication;
Notice does not include a named claimant;
Notice is illegible or concealed from view;
It is a printed literary, musical, or dramatic work that does not include the year.
A defective notice does not invalidate copyright in cases where the error is immaterial and would not mislead an infringer, such as an abbreviated name. Additionally, foreign works created outside the US are subject to copyright restoration even with a defective notice. It is not in the public domain in the countries or areas that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works, such as Canada, Mainland China (not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany, Mexico, Switzerland, and other countries with individual treaties.
This tag is designed for use where there may be a need to assert that any enhancements (eg brightness, contrast, colour-matching, sharpening) are in themselves insufficiently creative to generate a new copyright. It can be used where it is unknown whether any enhancements have been made, as well as when the enhancements are clear but insufficient. For known raw unenhanced scans you can use an appropriate {{PD-old}} tag instead. For usage, see Commons:When to use the PD-scan tag.
Note: This tag applies to scans and photocopies only. For photographs of public domain originals taken from afar, {{PD-Art}} may be applicable. See Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag.
Captions
Richard Dean Anderson as MacGyver in a 1985 publicity photo
Uploaded a work by ABC from [https://megalodon.jp/2025-1003-0136-12/https://www.ebay.co.uk:443/itm/405604658756], [https://megalodon.jp/2025-1003-0136-52/https://www.ebay.co.uk:443/itm/233670817657], [https://www.newspapers.com/image/1151462546], [https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/337683398] with UploadWizard